2488 Neo exported tracks don't line up with each other

[OptiNew]

Hi,
I have been using my 2488Neo for a long time but this is the first time I need to export all the tracks from a song recorded with the 2488Neo to my PC DAW for further editing and mixdown. When exported to the PC I discover that each track has a different length and when pasting the WAV files of the tracks into the PC DAW they do not line up correctly. I would have thought that each track will have equal length regardless of when the recording on it started. How else would you be able to sync them back together when exporting them individually? I wonder if I missed any steps before exporting them to the FAT, although the manual doesn't mention other steps.

When exporting a master track it will start every track from 0:00 and sync all the tracks, obviously, but that mixes it down to one master track, and I'd be exporting one track instead of the individual tracks that I need to export. I heard the DP has an Auto Depot feature but 2488Neo does not have that. They must have thought of a way to sync individual tracks once exported. Otherwise what's the point? I simply can't line up 14 tracks manually, each in the right spot. I would be an insane amount of work and probably not line up perfectly in the end

Can anyone offer some help?
Thanks in advance

 

[Mark Richards]

@OptiNew, welcome to the community.

Don't own a 2488, but a simple forum search [export, file, length] found this post from 2013.

It seems the work-around is to pad the beginning of the partial track before exporting.

Perhaps @shredd will chime in. He's owned all three versions of the 2488.

 

[OptiNew]

Thank you!
And thanks for pointing me to that post. It's even hard to wrap my mind around the "concept" of tracks in the same song having different lengths, knowing that once exported they will be difficult to sync with the other tracks. The main reason to export a track is to eventually sync it with other tracks from the same song in another DAW, and so having tracks be different lengths by default, largely defeats this purpose. Quoting one of the answers in that post, by Zeeke:

You can have syncing issues if one of the wav files was recorded half way through the song, eg a gtr solo. as the wav file will be shorter in length and you will need to line it up correctly in cubase. I have just added a section of silence so all the wav files exported start at 00:00:00 - makes life easier.

If? I don't know many songs where all the instruments play in bar one. Even in the most basic song you will find at least one instrument or voice that will begin playing later in the song.

Anyway, will try adding the silence section as suggested and let you know how it did. Frankly, I did think of a similar solution myself but thought it so rudimentary and cumbersome, (no reflection upon the commenter's suggestion but rather I could not believe Tascam didn't see this basic problem, didn't consider how most songs have different length tracks and didn't think of a more practical solution), I thought for sure that I must have missed something. I have to do this to a number of tracks and make sure I'm not silencing something I recorded, as some of my tracks have intermittent events with pauses in between.

Thanks

 

[Phil Tipping]

I don't own a neo but was very surprised to hear that it does not export tracks starting at time zero.
Having different length tracks is not an issue; on the DP24/32 series, they are all different lengths... but they all start at time zero regardless of where the actual recording starts.
I'm sure there are more elegant solutions than this, but my 2c would be to copy/insert a small section of audio (from anywhere) to the start point of every track. You might get away with inserting silence or opening up a gap instead of copy/inserting existing audio, but you'll need to confirm this.
Doing it for all tracks avoids having to work out which tracks are affected, and inserting (as opposed to overwriting) ensures none of your music is overwritten.
All tracks will now have audio material at the start, so the export will be forced to create all wave files from time zero.
You can choose to remove this extra section in the DAW if required, although if the bar count is not important and the section you insert is a quiet piece, you could just leave it.
Update: I think this is the same solution as Zeekle's post linked by Mark; I mis-read it as inserting a gap only on the affected track.

Re. your comment:

I don't know many songs where all the instruments play in bar one

This doesn't necessarily equate to the recording starting at bar one, depending on how you do the recording. If you are playing all parts live, you would typically start the recorder with all tracks armed, so even though the actual parts come in at varying times, the recorded files would all start at time zero; they would just contain quiet sections of audio before each part starts.
Your scenario is more likely to happen if you overdub parts, where you would position the transport at different points and arm individual tracks before pressing record.